schools 'advertising' via kids book bags

[misdee]

each week we seem to get a leaflet about things like tottenham hotsput football training, movies(flushed away this week), cartoon network etc. i find it very annoying and most of the stuff gets recycled as soon as i empty the bag. does anyone elses school do this? does the school get paid to do this? is anyone else bothered by it?

[Kelly1978]

I don't really care about the advertising but I hate the waste of paper.

[NomDePlume]

We don't get this, although we did have a leaflet for a local organic veg box scheme recently

[cowmad]

we get tons of stuff almost daily not from the school but advetising..do you think they get paid?

[DominiConnor]

We get stuff as well. I find it hard to care that much.
Kids see adverts anyway, so some money to the school strikes me as a better place than the TV or papers.

[kslatts]

We get quite a bit, but most of it's local and I find alot of it useful.

[cowmad]

is it up to the head then to decide what ads go in or do you think the lea?
also,if there are any teachers or heads out there? can they decide to stop all ads?
interested for a friend whos whole new business is based around doing ads in book bags and im worried that if a head or lea stops this way of advertising she scupperd...

[cowmad]

any one?

[misdee]

its a waste though of paper. it does bug me as some days there can be as many as 5 leaflets advertising something not connected to the school.

[cowmad]

anyone heard of "rareingtogo" could someone look it up.. its a magazine franchise.. and would you kind ladies of MN let me know your thoughts?

[Enid]

we occasionally get a Kumon type thing

and the head types an apologetic letter with it saying how they have paid to advertise

think there would be an outcry if there was anything else

isn't it illegal to advertise directly to children anyway?

[julienetmum]

Cowmad, really busy today and shoudn't be on here.

Your friend os on to a winner. I pay lots of money to advertise in publications like raring to go. I pay becasue it works, its an info mag for parents. Schools love them.

I also distribute flyers to schools via book bags each term. It is up to the individual school, whether they acceopt them or not. Many do.

[cowmad]

the evening crowd?

[DominiConnor]

It's not illegal to advertise to kids, else comics and kids TV channels would die overnight.
Indeed the witless artsgrads at OfCom gave into that sort of argument and thus didn't really ban junk food adverts all that much.

As for it being a business, the LEA has limited effective power, except to ban things. If you do a deal with the LEA for which the school gets nothing, then the lefalets simply won't get delivered to kids. Putting them in bags, etc is effort for the staff, and I don't see them doing that. Although I'm sure cowmad's friend is honest, my assumption would be that at best it was being done as a favour for a golfing chum of a senior bloke at the LEA, or more probably straight bungs.

That means lots of little deals, or if Cowmads friend is smart, some sort of deal wherer the LEA sets u pa master agreement for a cut, and the schools get the bulk of the money.
That's easy to say, but you will be dealing with local council officials, and that's like negotiating with people who failed the entrance exam to the communist party.

Also one has to be clear whether the target is kids or their parents.

I think advertising could be a good revenue source, and it's not that hard to filter out undesirable garbage.

[Smithagain]

We don't get much commercial advertising. I think it would bug me if there was a continuous stream of it, but I don't mind the odd thing especially if it is local.

And I must admit I make use of it myself to advertise the local church-based Holiday Club I run each summer. We ask the local school to distribute our flyer in the book bags, so that we reach the majority of the local kids in one hit. I hope we are not seriously winding anyone up by doing it, because it saves us a huge amount of time and effort advertising an event which seems to be extremely popular with local parents. And it is a church school, which is linked to the churches organising the Holiday Club.

[saffy202]

Have never received any advertising in school bookbags. I never realised it existed. Do tend to get leaflets shoved in my NHS payslip which is similar.

[threebob]

I would hope the school is getting the going rate. All I can suggest is that you send adverts for all your friends and families workplaces in with any notes to the teacher.

[julienetmum]

Dominic Connor I'm sorry but your info is not correct. We have gone direct to the schools, many are very happy to distribute our info and we know they get delivered by the phonecalls we get.

[cowmad]

bump

[WideWebWitch]

This annoys me too, have written on it before, will come back later, must do school run shortly.

[WideWebWitch]

This annoys me too, have written on it before, will come back later, must do school run shortly.

[WideWebWitch]

sorry

[cowmad]

also does anyone know if the head of a school can stop this "distribution" he/she wants? cos the franchise that my friend is looking at says schools have to distribute if the mag contains community info.im doubtful of this but would like confimation if anyone knows?

[julienetmum]

The head could stop it if he/she wanted to but I don't know any that refuse to distribute the type of mag your friend is thinkging of.

The exact mag does not exist in my area yet but we have several similar ones.

[cowmad]

julienetmum so you think this is a good idea? im worried for friend its ALOT of money for the franchise (and for advertising) i know its aimed at mums etc but all it takes is the heads in the area to get together an decide their not having any more ads in book bags...and business over,with a big debt.worried.